Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama eBook

The theory of development which I have adopted is
substantially that elaborated by Rossi. To him
belongs the honour of having been the first clearly
to indicate the historical steps by which the eclogue
passes into the drama. The idea, however, was
not original; it underlies the accounts given by Egidio
Menagio in the notes to his edition of the Aminta
(Paris, 1655), by G. Fontanini (Aminta difeso,
Roma, 1700, and Venezia, 1730), by P. L. Ginguene
(Histoire litteraire d’Italie, vol. vi,
Paris, 1813), and by Klein. It was also virtually
accepted by Stiefel in his review of Rossi, since
he confined his criticism to pointing out and attempting
to fill occasional gaps in the sequence of development,
and to insisting on the influence of the regular drama,
and more particularly of the Intronati comedy.
The incomplete state of Creizenach’s work, and
the caution with which he expresses himself on the
subject, preclude our reckoning him among the declared
supporters of the theory; but there can be little
doubt, I think, as to the tendency of his remarks.
This may then be regarded as the orthodox view.
It has not, however, received the exclusive adherence
of scholars, and it may therefore be thought right
that I should both give in detail the arguments by
which it is supported and my reasons for accepting
it, and likewise state the grounds on which I reject
the rival theories that have been propounded.

Two of these latter may be quickly dismissed.
These are the views put forward respectively by Gustav
Weinberg, Das franzoesische Schaeferspiel in der
ersten Haelfte des XVIIten Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt,
1884), and by J. G. Schoenherr in his Jorge de
Montemayor (Halle, 1886). Weinberg finds
the origin of the Italian pastoral drama in the ‘Eclogas’
of Juan del Encina. With regard to this theory
it may be sufficient to observe that, at the time
Encina wrote, the ecloga rappresentativa, or
dramatic eclogue, was already familiar in the Italian
courts, and that, so far from his writings being the
source of any pastoral tradition even in his own country,
what subsequent dramatic work of the kind is to be
found in Spain merely represents a further borrowing
from Italy. Schoenherr, on the other hand, regards
the Jus Robins et Marion as the source of the
Arcadian drama. Not only, however, did Adan de
le Hale’s play fail to originale any dramatic
tradition in its own country, but it is itself nothing
but an amplified pastourelle, a form which,
in spite of marked Provencal influence, never obtained
to any extent in Italy. It need hardly be said
that there is not a vestige of historical evidence
to support either of these theories[366].